With the rain lashing down throughout the day in this soggy part of Lancashire, there looked to be little chance of Allardyce agreeing to venture on to the pitch for the obligatory shot for the photographers.

But as soon as he walked into the players’ tunnel, the rain stopped pouring and Allardyce’s lucky streak came to the fore once again.

He said: “It’s been pelting down all day and I step outside and it stopped raining!

“If I’m that lucky against Stoke on Saturday, we will be all right!”

After being sacked by Newcastle after just six months in charge in January, Allardyce’s magic touch appeared to have deserted him.

The 54-year-old former Bolton boss rejected the chance to succeed Mark Hughes at Ewood Park in the summer, but his exile from the game looked to be becoming worryingly long-term until Paul Ince was given his marching orders on Tuesday.

And having been given a second chance to take the helm at Blackburn, Allardyce admits he grabbed it wholeheartedly in order to prove that he still has what it takes to succeed in the Premier League.

He said: “Do I have something to prove? Yes, I think so.

“That’s because I want to decide when I am finished in this game. I want it to be my decision and not somebody else’s.

“I have had a good 11 months off, but there is longer left in me, hopefully. If I see this contract out and am successful, hopefully there might be another one, but I am not going to put a date on when I finish again.

“When I said I would finish at 55, that was 10 years ago.

“It has gone so quickly and I have had so much success that I want another great journey and let’s hope this is it.”

Allardyce once insisted that his British bulldog tag left him with no chance of landing a top job in this country. And he claims that Juande Ramos’ shock success in landing the Real Madrid job earlier this month proves his point.

He said: “If Juande Ramos can leave at the bottom of the table with Tottenham and get the Real Madrid job, you have to think that if I was Spanish I might be able to do that as well, but I’m not.

“What you’ve done before quickly gets forgotten in this game, though.

“Newcastle came and went very quickly.

“But the position I was in at my old club, Bolton? Well you know what it was without me blowing my own trumpet.

“I just hope I can have the Harry Redknapp Midas touch and have a similar start to the one he enjoyed at Spurs earlier this season.”

The new Rovers boss has inherited a team five points adrift of safety in the Premier League and star striker Roque Santa Cruz is also eyeing a January move to Manchester City.

But Allardyce has vowed to hold on to the Paraguayan.

He said: “There is no temptation on my part to sell Roque in January.

“Where are the players, with Premier League experience, who can replace the quality we already have?

“Every player at this club has a wealth of Premier League experience and they have to draw on that.

“To sell any of your best players, particularly one of your leading goalscorers, is not the case for me.”